Thursday, September 11, 2014


As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner-German Jewish Poets   

ERNST TOLLER (1893-1939)


THE ROAD TO THE TRENCHES


Through grenade furrows
And filthy puddles
They walk.
Over soldiers
Freezing in a hole in the ground
They stagger.

Rats dart squeaking over their path
Stormy rain knocks with fingers of death
On decaying doors
Signal rockets
Plague lanterns…

From trench to trench.

Translated by Peter Appelbaum



CORPSES IN THE PRIESTER WOODS


A dung heap of rotting corpses:
Glazed eyes, bloodshot,
Brains split, guts spewed out
The air poisoned  by the stink of corpses
A single awful cry of madness

Oh women of  France,
Women of Germany
Regard your menfolk!
They fumble with torn hands
For the swollen bodies of their enemies,
Gestures, stiff in death, become the touch of brotherhood,
Yes they embrace each other,
Oh, horrible embrace!

I see and see and am struck dumb
Am I a beast, a murderous dog?
Men violated….
Murdered….

Ernst Toller -  Translated by Peter Appelbaum


NIGHTMARE


On a pole, rotten and foul
Squats the  conscience of nations,
Three childrens’ bones dance around the pole
Broken from a young mother’s body.
A sheep bleats the rhythm bäh bäh.

Ernst Toller -  Translated by Peter Appelbaum

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